Editorial

This edition of Barrow Voice is awash with photographs. We’ve had such a brilliant summer it’s meant many events in the village have occurred under sunny skies.

Barrow Open Gardens was a phenomenal success and the group’s new-openers are
featured here. The World Cup was less so but England did reach the semis and warm
evenings meant we could follow them in local pubs on outdoor screens. The weather
was hot for the Street Market too and building work at the library couldn’t possibly
have been delayed by rain! (We have photographs showing the improved kitchen and
toilet facilities.) And see how gorgeous Marans is in the summer - dining al-fresco
under flowering trees! So although this is the autumn edition it does look back over
the last few months while also anticipating the future with information about the
marking of the end of WW1, the October Murder Mystery and Barrow Youth Theatre’s
production of ‘Hairspray’. Much is coming!

Finally, a plea: if you have any Open Gardens photographs you are willing to share
online through the Barrow Voice off-shoot ‘A Year in Pictures’, please send to either
Helen Sadler hesadler17@gmail.com or myself barspiller@btinternet.com.

Dear Editor
I would be grateful to have the opportunity to reply to a letter you published from Martin Wigmore in the last issue of Barrow Voice, dated Summer 2018.

Mr Wigmore referred to a planning application made by BUSCA to provide a community hub on land at Fishpool Way. Mr Wigmore states ‘’the Millennium Park being used for the site…’’. Actually, the application does not affect the Millennium Park but refers to land known as the picnic area separated from the Millennium Park by the driveway to Fishpool House. Personally, if any application came forward for any kind of building on the Millennium Park, I would be dismayed.

It remains in our plans to use Humphrey Perkins School for the large BUSCA events e.g. pantomimes, youth theatre, murder mysteries and dances and would expect that other users who require a large venue in this village would do similarly. Mr Wigmore appears to be under the impression that this plan is about providing rooms for hire as available in the village pubs and clubs. I can only assume he has not read the planning application. For example, he makes no reference to the provision in the plan for a sports hall. The activities that will occur there cannot possibly be provided at the venues he mentions, neither can those others detailed in the application, for example, a day-centre for the elderly.

Mr Wigmore asserts that “It’s taking money away from the very community it is supposed to serve”. I can only guess at what is meant here but it may suffice to say that no public funds from any source have been used so far or will be used for the construction. All funds have been raised by the voluntary action of BUSCA and will be used in the best interests of the community.

By the way, the building and all it offers, will be available to residents of Walton on the Wolds and beyond.

Alan Willcocks
BUSCA trustee.

Peter Preston
(as a boy)

(Barry Wilford’s article is in response to one
in the spring edition written by Jerry Sykes.
Peter Preston became The Guardian’s most
famous editor because he changed a small
regional paper, The Manchester Guardian, into an important national voice.)

On my return from South Africa I was
saddened to read of the death of Peter
Preston, a boyhood friend of mine. He
was indeed born in Cotes Road on May
23rd 1938, and I believe, in the Dutch
style house after the new roundabout. He moved later into the village with his
family to live at 'The Cottage' in South
Street. After that the obituary becomes
rather blurred.

From April 1945 onwards I lived with my
family at Geo Hill's grocery, opposite 'The
Cottage', so we soon became friends. He
was in the Cubs with me and was indeed
very sporty, being a very agile goalie
between two strategically-placed trees
on his lawn whilst I was the super striker.
One day on April 7th 1948, a month
after taking my 11+, whilst playing with
Peter, Mr Preston came home ill from
work. He was a greengrocery manager
at a wholesaler’s in Nottingham Road
Loughborough. Mrs P suggested that I
go home as Peter would go and sit with
his father. On April 11th his father died
of polio, and 11 days later Peter had
the disease. By April 26th it was touch
and go for Peter; by the 30th there was
a turn for the better. During the next
month my father took Mrs P by car to
Harlow Wood to visit Peter, now mostly
encased in an iron lung. By June 2nd Mrs
P [later to become Mrs Brown] with the
rest of the family, Bill and Susan, moved
to 'Banockburn'. On his return from
hospital I cycled most Sunday mornings
from Barrow to his new home in Quorn.
I believe that he was encouraged by his
physiotherapist to take up magic, and
indeed marionettes, to encourage the use
of his hands. Many a Sunday morning he
would entertain me and his siblings at
a model theatre set up in the garage. I
do believe he once appeared in a Barrow
Scout Gang Show doing conjuring tricks.
I continued to visit Peter until 1953 when
I started an engineering apprenticeship at Herbert Morris Ltd whilst Peter was at
Loughborough Grammar School, Oxford
University and beyond.